The conditional phrasing is deliberate: what is recorded comes from local information rather than excavation, and the site is noted as inaccessible. That combination, a probable prehistoric cooking site sitting in marshy ground, known only by word of mouth and unreachable underfoot, gives the place a particular quality. It exists somewhere between folklore and archaeology.

Fulachtaí fia are among the most common prehistoric monument types in Ireland, found in their thousands, particularly in low-lying or wet ground. The name is sometimes translated as "cooking place of the deer" or "cooking place of the wild," though their precise function is still debated. The typical form involves a horseshoe-shaped mound of burnt, shattered stone surrounding a trough. Water in the trough was heated by dropping fire-heated stones into it, and the cracked, fire-damaged stones were discarded to form the mound over time. They date mostly to the Bronze Age, roughly 1500 to 500 BC, though some are earlier or later. The waterlogged setting at Rathaneague is entirely consistent with the type; wet ground both preserved the organic material around such sites and may have made water collection easier for whoever used them.